My car bunny-jumped and grinded its way to the garage this morning. It was very early, I was a little hungover and I was very anxious that I wasn't going to make it before the old girl gave up on me. It's the first serious trouble I've had with my VW since I bought it new eight years ago and it hurt me to hear her in such pain. I don't actually think of my car as a woman, but as you know I am probably fonder of machines than people. It's an it. But an it that I have fond feelings for. But mainly I was imagining now much this was going to cost me financially. The way it was revving and then shunting forwards whenever I started moving made me pretty sure that the gear box had died. Hopefully it was the garage's fault and they had made some kind of error with my service (which included oiling the gearbox and changing the filters - whatever they are), but how would I be able to prove that it was their fault. Especially as they would be doing all the repair work and the fact that I don't know anything about cars anyway.
I made it to Chiswick, though there was a smell of mild burning in the car and I was feeling very stressed. Why can't things just last forever? Why must all things of beauty fade and rot and rust?
As if to add insult to injury when I checked my iPhone at the garage it had frozen and nothing I did seemed to correct it. My life was falling apart around me, just as I was feeling I had everything in order. I had had the car serviced for the tour and got an application on my iPhone where I was organising my life and all seemed to be going well. Then comes this double punch to the gut. Admittedly it's about the worst morning I've had for several months and would hardly rate in many more tragic lives. I know I am stupidly lucky and I was pretty sure that my iPhone would be OK once I'd had a look at what to do on the website. But evenso it was annoying. At least my mum hadn't pretended to kidnap me for the reward money, or my work colleague hadn't come into the office with a machine gun or I'd been laid off by the steel manufacturer that I had worked at for 25 years. But if we're not allowed to moan because there are people worse off than us in the world, then none of us can ever open our mouths. Or just one person can. The most unfortunate person in the world. And it isn't you is it? I am pretty certain the most unfortunate person in the world does not have internet access.
It's definitely not me. Though I've had some ups and downs nothing really terrible has happened to me in the six years I've been doing this blog (and nothing really awful before then). I don't know how I am going to cope in the post-Apocalyptic world we're apparently heading for. Well I do know. I will die almost immediately.
Unless my iPhone still works. They might have an application that can help you start fires and forage in the woods.
I tried to run back home, but felt a bit sick (whether because of the impending garage bill or the three glasses of wine I had after last night's recording I don't know) and ended up getting the bus. Like a person without a car would have to - that's a joke, by the way, I hardly ever use my car in London and am a keen supporter of our useless public transport network.
I went home and bought a train ticket for my Whitstable gig. I might well be back on the train of lost souls tomorrow night, but should be able to get the slightly earlier one - the train of tarnished souls - so hopefully if I am writing my blog it won't be quite as tense and exciting.
But there is no train back from Tewkesbury after my gig there on Saturday (and in fact I would have to wait til 2pm on Sunday if I didn't fancy the 14 mile trip into Gloucester by cab or bus), so I am going to hire a working car for the weekend.
I hope my car will be OK. We've done 80,000 miles together. I hope we make it to 100,000.
I managed to get quite a lot of work done despite my tiredness and depression and almost completed an entire chapter of the new book (I started work on it on Monday, but it does revolve around my fight in Liverpool, so I had a lot of the material already written up).
Then I went to Q Radio to record a couple of interviews. I had to say what I made of a few new releases in a show called "Q, the Jury", which I think should have been called "Q, the Music", but maybe my name is too obvious. The DJ told me a funny story about how he'd been punched by Chris Martin from Coldplay at some music do. Chris had been saying how he had an arrangement with his wife where he was allowed to be unfaithful, but only if he managed to get off with all of Girls Aloud at once. In return Gwyneth was allowed to get off with all of Westlife. The DJ said that that was hardly a fair trade off, Westlife not exactly equating with Girls Aloud. "It would be fair if it was someone like Brad Pitt," he said, forgetting the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow had once been engaged to him. Hence the punch to the solar plexus. Quite an achievement though to rile the otherwise placid and likeable Martin.
But it must be a pretty tough life being married to someone who was nearly married to the sexiest man alive (who apparently
I resemble). It's bound to get a bit annoying. Then again, in some ways if someone marries you rather than Brad Pitt, then that means that in their eyes (presuming they did the breaking up with Brad) you are better than him. Worse surely to have lost your fiance to Brad Pitt. Every time you saw them on TV you'd be apoplectic.
My article about Bill Hicks is now in Q magazine incidentally - although they had added an extra paragraph at the end quoting the "it's a ride" routine, which I deliberately didn't want to do, given it's such an obvious thing to quote. If they didn't like my ending then I don't know why they didn't just ask me to rewrite it. But never mind, you can read my original version, for free,
in the Press section.
